The lady sheriff of Plains Junction has more trouble on her hands than she expected when an outlaw rides back into her life and tells her he's about to finish what he started.

Maddy Haynes is the sheriff of small town Plains Junction, Missouri. This is her town where vigilantes, outlaws and criminal types aren't welcome. Yet when one handsome outlaw rides back into her town, the sparks fly between them once again. Now how is she supposed to uphold the law?

Jeb McIntyre has a reason for everything he does, including taunting the lady sheriff. He's on the Most Wanted list but on Maddy's list, he's listed twice. On her list of criminals to slap in jail, and on her short list of men to bed.

Excerpt

Maddy Haynes rode through the one-street town, keeping an eye out for any man, be he lean, mean or just ornery, who spelled trouble. Plains Junction was her town. The brothel above the saloon was quiet at this hour, the women having entertained their customers for the night and gone to bed for the day. Across the street, John’s Mercantile was open for business as was the small post office with grizzly haired Gotch puttering around behind the counter.

The mid-morning sun hovered behind her, warming her back through her light-brown leather vest and cotton shirt. Some folks in the town had a problem with a lady sheriff, but she’d always sworn a woman could do exactly what a man did. Often better. She’d had no trouble keeping the law she was sworn to uphold. Courtesy of a father who had wanted a son but gotten a daughter, she’d learned to ride and, by the age of fourteen, handled a gun better than most grown men did. The Plains Junction people generally liked her although the men often cursed her behind her back for lording it over them.

Maddy kept riding, enjoying the slight breeze toying with her collar and blowing in under her shirt against her hot bare skin. Mid-July and the heat was already more oppressive than in the nearby foundry. Maddy didn’t like the heat much. It reminded her of Jeb McIntryre, the only outlaw she hadn’t been able to lock behind bars as he deserved.

She cantered past the Plains Junctions bank, debating whether to look in on the young clerk and the early customers. A deep, very masculine voice interrupted her orderly thoughts.

“Hey Maddy.”

As her horse snorted, she spun around in the saddle, desperately searching for the owner of the voice. He didn’t belong in this town. Or if he did, he belonged in her jail, locked in and with the key thrown away.

Unbelievably, she’d ached for him as she rode along buried in her thoughts. She longed to see Jeb McIntyre, the most wanted man on her list of fugitives. The shadows had been so long, and her eyes unaccustomed to the dark, sheltered places under the rickety balcony of the bank, she’d missed him!

She reined in her horse with some difficulty. The beast apparently didn’t like McIntyre any more than she did, although she admitted reluctantly that that hadn’t always been the case.

“Don’t bother getting off your horse, Maddy,” he said, his voice holding a threat the same way a man held a gun to the head of another man. “You know I won’t stick around long, and I’d be gone before you could even holler ‘sheriff’.”

Maddy blinked several times. How could she have not seen him leaning against the wooden post as casually as if he belonged there? In her town? The man, if he hadn’t been the most wanted, would have made her want a night or two in his bed. Dark-brown hair caught up in a ponytail with a leather band, haunting coffee-coloured eyes, a sensuous mouth she’d once kissed with erotic pleasure, and a tall, muscular frame, dressed in black. He wore his hat tipped over his face, but he couldn’t hide his too male arrogance.

That’s why he’d been able to slip by her unnoticed. He’d dressed to blend with the shadows. Maddy imagined his naked body pressing hers into the quilt-covered bed in her room. His rough hands scoring rivets of desire over her swollen breasts. His tongue rasping trails of molten fire up and down the tender skin of her inner thighs. She had to stop these erotic thoughts that had no hope of going anywhere.

From a dry throat, she managed, “What are you doing here?” She wanted to sound as threatening as he did, but her voice was far too breathy. Too female. Too damned needy.

“Came to see what you’re up to.” He spoke as if it wasn’t a big deal to walk into her town when he was wanted and thumb his nose at her.

Jeb’s eyes roamed up and down. “Come on, Maddy. No need to be mad. Last I heard, you’re not a sore loser.”

“You think far too much of yourself.” He always left her breathless, feeling as if she was no longer in control. But then she’d never known anyone who could restrain wild Jeb McIntyre.

His eyebrows flickered upwards in question. He shifted from one foot to the other, calm, assured, contemptuous. “That so? Didn’t seem to bother you none at Pointe Bluff.”

A slow, fierce blush heated her cheeks. Her nipples peaked painfully against her shirt, and sitting astride the horse did nothing to curb the dampness between her thighs. Disturbing goose bumps prickled her arms. Damn, but she had to regain her composure in a hurry. What had happened half a year ago was the past. And a mistake. A mistake she’d never make again. McIntyre couldn’t walk into her town and taunt her. She wouldn’t let him. “Get out of my town, McIntyre.”

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